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So here is the old buck
       who all winter long
had traveled with the does
       and yearlings, with the fawns
just past their spots,
       and who had hung back,
walking where the others had walked,
       eating what they had left,
and who had struck now and then
       a pose against the wind,
against a twig-snap or the way
       the light came slinking
among the trees.

Here is the mangled ear
       and the twisted, hindering leg.
Here, already bearing him away
       among the last drifts of snow
and the nightly hard freezes,
       is a line of tiny ants,
making its way from the cave
       of the right eye, over the steep
occipital ridge, across the moonscape, shed-horn
       medallion and through the valley
of the ear's cloven shadow
       to the ground,
where among the staves
       of shed needles and the red earthy wine
they carry him
       bit by gnawn bit
into another world.

Added: 7 Apr 2002 | Last Read: 4 Dec 2008 1:42 AM | Viewed: 3110 times

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